Carefully crafted social media posts and other online propaganda are fighting to make people around the world take sides, harden their positions and even move broader public opinion.
To understand this information war, we need to understand where and how arguments and ideologies are promoted and developed online.
Misinformation contractors
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-dark-webs-latest-offering-disinformation-as-a-service
now make their services available on the dark web (an encrypted part of the web that makes it very difficult to identify users) to people looking to mount widespread campaigns.
Inside the dark web, those developing mis- and disinformation can use techniques that are used by legitimate marketing companies in the outside world. They can experiment with messages, and test the responses they receive to them. On dark web forums, groups of activists can collaborate on messaging, imagery, timing and targeting to best effect.
Another origin of much misinformation is “troll farms”, which are staffed by government agents or their proxies in China, North Korea and Russia etc...
They are increasingly using AI-driven bots programmed to spread particular narratives or key words or phrases. “Viral” bots magnify the reach of their content by getting networks of other bots to repost it, which in turn encourages search engine and social media algorithms that favour popular and provocative posts to give it greater prominence.
(PDF URL)
https://oro.open.ac.uk/66155/8/70-Article%20Text-258-2-10-20190906.pdf
So when traditional news is seen as inadequate or hard to come by, people are more likely to turn social media and its flood of dark web-created misinformation.